Beautiful
brass works like this crane and bell show the outstanding artistry
that
is common to India. Eighty percent of the world's diamonds are cut
and
polished there, and it is the world's number one consumer of gold.

The
children at the Rotary Special School for the mentally retarded in
Kerala
gave Kelly a warm welcome.

Author's
Note:
India's Hindu nationalist government collapsed April 17. Leaders of
Sonia
Gandhi's Congress Party had charged that recent attacks on
Christians
were incited by Hindu nationalist sympathizers. New elections are
set
for October.

This
past winter,
Response writer Clint Kelly was one of five professionals chosen
from
the Seattle area to represent Rotary International in India. The
Group
Study Exchange team stayed in the homes of Indian Rotarians and saw
firsthand
the life-changing work Rotary clubs perform among the disadvantaged.
Among
Kelly's many vivid memories of the trip is this one from the first
day:

At 3:15 in the morning, the Madras Airport in southern India smells
of
damp and must. Despite the hour, swells of East Indians, oddly
hushed,
jam the barricades for the first glimpse of new arrivals. Cars snarl
the
approach roads, madly honking in futility.

It is warm and humid and my first time on Indian soil. I am a large
Caucasian
curiosity in urgent need of a $10 retiring room with A/C. One is
found,
and I stretch out on a hard cot to watch pre-dawn Indian TV and to
scan
the Sunday edition of The New Indian Express in the
irrational hope of
devouring this exotic land in one read.

Welcome to the world's largest democracy, I think ruefully, a
sensual
and complex land rich in 5,000 years of history. India, burdened
with
1,600 languages and dialects, teems with contradictions and is rife
with
what Mark Twain called "riddles at every turn."

I was to see these things for myself over the next month as I
traveled
India's two southernmost states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. For the
time
being, however, I remain glued to the horrific details of the news
article:
"Graham Stewart Staines, 58, ran a leprosy hospital ... was sleeping
in his jeep with his two sons ... when a group of 100 people
allegedly
poured petrol and set the vehicle ablaze...."

For the second time in two months in Orissa state, Christians have
died
at the hands of suspected religious fanatics who believe
Christianity
is a holdover of the colonial era and has no place in a largely
Hindu
society. Persecution of Christians in India is said to be at its
highest
level in the 50 years since independence. The central government is
in
danger of collapse, in part, for its failure to protect religious
minorities.

Over the next month, I came to know a different India than the one
portrayed
in the news report -- a religiously tolerant one, home to caring,
decent
people possessed of a remarkable hospitality where "the guest is
god."
Among these new friends are:

H.V.D. Prasad, a newspaper publisher who said the way to tell a
Christian
home in India is by equality at the dining table: men and women
eating
together instead of separated by Hindu custom.

Suresh Kumar, a Hindu dental surgeon who named his son Krishnan or
"Lord
Almighty."

D.V.M. Premkumar and his wife, Jayanthi, who own the Kamalin Tea
Estate
high in the Nilgiris Hills. Last year a man-eating leopard was
killed
near their home by government trackers.

The children of these families are cheerful and sweet-spirited:
Deepak,
Deepthi, Preethan, Vidhyanthi and John. Little five-year-old
Gayathri
told her mother she wished she knew more English so that she could
speak
to the "uncle" from America.

It was Indian school children like these who stayed home from
classes
one day to protest the killing of the Christians in Orissa.

Many rich memories remain of my visit to the Asian subcontinent:
Anesha,
the female elephant who stopped hauling logs at the local sawmill
long
enough to give me and my teammates a gentle ride; eating with our
hands
off banana leaves and chewing a fiery peppercorn straight from the
vine;
watching dolphins, snakes, monkeys, wild dogs and even a
swift-footed
mongoose on their appointed rounds.

But again, it is the images of people that linger most. The many
artisans
in gold and cloth who create some of the world's finest jewelry and
textiles.
The bright university students who quizzed us on love, marriage and
nuclear
proliferation. The Christians who knelt shoulder-to-shoulder at the
communion
rail of a large church in Coimbatore. Whether rich or poor, East or
West,
how very much alike we are when on our knees.

One in six people on the globe are East Indian and the country
grows
by the population of Australia each year. As for my maiden journey
to
India, it fills me with hope for the future of this enormous,
chaotic
nation. I have hope because I've met Indian people, slept under
their
roofs, prayed with them and laughed with their children.

For me, India now has a face and that face is the face of a friend.
I
want the best for my friend and with God's great help, the best will
come.
But on my first day in India, all such discoveries lay ahead....

I come to the end of the newspaper report, oblivious to the
anachronistic
episode of TV's "The Jetsons" filling my retiring room with spirited
clatter.

Unsettled by the account of missionary murder, I fold the newspaper
and
set it aside. I'm grateful to be in the care of Rotarians who so
dramatically
improve the lives of their countrymen through a myriad of health,
education
and employment initiatives. My hunch is that in their company the
only
death I need fear is the death of my own ignorance.